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Bards lost
to KFD
KFD keep the Prods in their sights with another
fine victory
 Kieran
finds solace in mellifluence...
The
Parrswood doesn't look a lot like an Oxbridge
college from the outside nor, it must be said, from
the inside. No soft golden stone mellowing in
evening sunlight, no beautifully manicured lawns nor
soaring architecture to cow the bog standard
comprehensive hopeful. Also no twats wandering
around in sub-fusc concluding their argument with
"And ninthly....". No problem for the Bards
however; they've commandeered their own (very) High
Table in an alcove only a few minutes walk from the
bar, and there we perched for what became a hard won
victory which was in doubt into the final round.
Singular Bond girl
(R1/Sp1)
Parallels will of course be drawn (by me) with City
experiencing a similar contest at Villa Park.
Second in the league, away to opponents who are
never easy to vanquish and who should really be
challenging higher up the table. Well, if we
were City, then Barry was Bernardo (he won't thank
me for that) and his inspired 'plague of locusts'
answer for the North American event was as sweet as
the Duracell Bunny caressing that volley into the
Holte End net. Almost. That was a hammer
blow to the Bards from which they never recovered.
If
that was the high point then the way a salivating
David fell upon "I Feel Priti Patel" in the mucky
Run-ons round was surely the nadir. Not an
image any of us wish to linger on, except possibly
David, for whom we are absolutely not providing
counselling. Still it was another two points
on the path to victory and David has the solace of
the confessional should it be required.
KFD David's 'Dogs in Space' mug
(R2/Q8)
The
'nudge, nudge' Run-ons Round was the only round we
won by more than two points, 6-3 in our favour.
More injurious to our hosts' cause was that they
copped for 7 of the unanswereds (going second) to
our 3. Tony was a non-playing captain tonight
and the foursome who took the field did him as proud
as they possibly could, outscoring us on twos and
only losing out 4-5 on pass-overs. So yes we
got them in ones.
Having been the equivalent of PSG for a couple of
years, as in 'how can they possibly be so useless?'
our classic line up now has 4 wins from 4 matches
this season and we're right in the mix for what
currently looks like a four-way title battle.
Champions, the Rodinistas, visit the Griffin next
week for a crunch game which will be conducted in
the spirit of goodwill to all, even deadly quiz
league rivals. And just in case the Opsis have any
doubts, or hopes, El Presidente Bob will be exactly
where he should be, in the temperate climate of the
Griffin front room, immaculately overseeing
proceedings. Who could conceive of anything
other? What? Not everyone in the league
is a severely damaged Catholic? OK, December 8th is
the feast of the Immaculate Conception so, see what
I did there? No, don't ask me to explain it
even though that stuff stays with you no matter how
wholly you embrace atheism. You should have
paid more attention forty or fifty years ago, or
gone to a Catholic school. On second thoughts
no to that last part.
Last of Eden
(R2/Q1)
Charabancs
beat Electric Pigs
The Charas chalk up their first victory of the
season
 Damian
is over the moon!...
Hallelujah, and let the festive frivolities
commence! We finally managed to fail so well that
we actually won, thus scoring our first triumph of
the season - and thankfully going into the Christmas
break with at least one victory under our belt.
Thanks to the spirit of Sam B for sticking with us
all these weeks and gently urging us on until we
finally crossed that much coveted threshold!
Each member of the team contributed fully to this
overdue result scoring at least one two - including
our regular QM Jane (who actually scored 3 twos)
making up our foursome this week. Roddy kindly
took the QM chair and did the honours for his team's
paper. Even when a two was not forthcoming our
collaborative efforts usually got us a point and we
benefited from a good number of steals for once,
instead of watching our opponents feast on them.
Irish creator of A Little Night Music
(R5/Q4)
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Two-faced Scouse birds
(R2/Q5)
Prodigals
beat History Men
The high-flying Prods just squeak home
 Ivor
is philosophical...
A very convivial evening at the Albert Club actually
saw the Historymen ahead by 4 points after Round 3,
but Rounds 4 and 5 left us 6 points adrift and we
simply couldn't make up the deficit. Of course
we weren't expected to win and tonight’s team of
Jimmy, Richard, John and Michael, with Anne-Marie in
the QM seat, might well be regaining the League
Champions Shield on present form.
The conviviality continued afterwards when Jimmy,
Richard and Michael relocated with David and myself
to a late night hostelry on Burton Road (The Drawing
Room). So late that I avoided hearing Alison’s
tale of woe following her attendance at Goodison
Park. At least it was only a 1-4 defeat;
Alison had had a dream (nightmare) of a 0-12 defeat
perhaps after the 20-0 England Woman's team victory
the day before.
Stats for our quiz were: 6 unanswereds (Prodigals 2
to Historymen's 4), 6 steals apiece and only 19 twos
(Prodigals 10 to Historymen's 9). So,
well-balanced but, despite a combined score of 77,
it felt like a difficult paper.
Nobel Labour Leader
(R2/Q4)
 Michael
is intrigued...
Intriguing evening. Took us ages to finish,
and there were quite a few 'WTF' questions - despite
Ethel using exactly the same theme, and a couple of
the same questions, that they used in their last
quiz.
I do
think asking QMs to pronounce terms in Icelandic,
Russian, and German is a bit steep.
 and
Mike is spectating...
The History Men were in the lead until the end of
Round 3 but then fell away. I was only a
spectator but did appreciate the wonderful
atmosphere not least created by Anne-Marie's QMing.
There were a few very challenging questions for the
QM this week e.g. those doggies! No doubt Ivor
will report more fully on other aspects including
his blurts and Ann's displeasure thereat.
Several thought Question of the Week was Round 4,
Spare Question 2.
Albert
beat Opsimaths
Top score of the evening goes to Albert
 Mike
O'B's Racquet of Reward pays off...
At last a quiz where we managed to score a
reasonable number of twos. To be fair the main
problem was that there appeared to be a lack of
balance so that the Opsis, having lost the toss and
gone second, fielded far more unanswerables than we
did. Against all my instincts I was forced to
show the Racquet of Reward to Jeremy because of his
knowledge of the French 'Opera-Glucky' fellow.
Pop's Snap but no Crackle for Mike
(R1/Q8)
 whilst
Mike B wallows in defeat...
When
I was young I revelled in gorging on information for
the sake of it - memorising lists of Oscar winners,
consigning dates of boring battles to my own mental
databank, finding out the names of atrocious singers
in second-rate pop combos. It was all grist to
the mill. These days I have lost that
appetite. In the time left I am intent on just
finding out about the things that interest me - and
antique German electronic dance bands with
card-themed names simply doesn't feature amongst
these. Snap's pop just doesn't crackle for me!
So,
we lost by miles to a finely honed quizzing machine
kept in order by the iron fist in the iron glove of
'Killer' O'Brien. Never mind! We enjoyed
the evening - and the excellent Rodin paper -
perched as we were in that raised area of the
Didsbury where people who thought they might go
upstairs but then couldn't be arsed come to rest.
Eveline was an excellent QM raising her voice when
required and mastering some tricky Icelandic
pronunciations along the way.
In
mitigation (as MO'B mentions above) the Opsis did
have the bulk of the unanswerable questions (8 to
Albert's 2 - and most of them seemed to come to me)
whilst on twos scored we were pretty level (Albert
scoring 9 to the Opsis' 8).
First of the Southern line
(R7/Q6)
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Quiz paper set by...
...Ethel Rodin
Average Aggregate score 70.3
A
great paper from Ethel this week. Loads of
tantalising 'Tip of the tongue' stuff and quite a
few 'Well, I never knew that' questions. Even
when the going is tough, if the content interest is
high then it's a worthwhile evening. On quite
a few occasions I found myself keen to chat about
the questions during the paper which is always a
good sign.
Only
downside perhaps, the team going second bore the
brunt of the unanswerables.
But
an inspired 'Run-ons' round which upped the ante on
this format quite a few notches. For me QotW
combined the memory of one of the late Stephen
Sondheim's best known songs and the appallingly
xenophobic current Home Secretary in the memorable
'I Feel Pretty Patel' answer.
"Oh, dear, here comes Beeching"
(R1/Q2)
so
what did Damian think...
Tonight's paper from Ethel Rodin played to our
strengths for once, being mercifully free of endless
football and contemporary pop culture trivia which
definitely doesn't do us any favours. It had
an interesting assortment of themes, Run-ons (which
we very much liked) and pairs, with events of the
past and the recent present, well represented.
Quite a bit of educational material in there as well
with Irish composers we had never heard of (but
maybe should have), making significant contributions
to musical forms, and Nobel-prize winning Labour
Party leaders who shamefully escaped our recall
(even stalwart Labourites such as Piggie Andrew
struggled with that one I think). The
scientific elements questions had most of us
scratching our heads and I counted just 9
unanswerables which seemed to split quite evenly
between us. Overall we thought a good effort
from our current league champions!
and
Mike H...
A
curate's egg of a quiz; some great questions, some
not so. Several I could answer, including 4 in
a row (don't remember that happening before!).
Lloyd's bell(e)
(R2/Q6 & R8/Q3)
and
Mike O'B...
We
much enjoyed the Lucy Powell round and had geared
ourselves up for "Which prominent Withquizzer has
Lucy Powell described as 'the Rock' around which her
entire being is built?" - but alas it never came.
Unanswerables aside the quiz contained a lot of
interesting questions, enlivened by QM Eveline's
capacity for heaping personal abuse on us at every
opportunity.
and
finally Ivor has his say...
The
paper this week was favourably regarded - though the
'James Bond' singers idea had featured before in an
Ethel quiz. Nothing wrong with that as there
have been so many Bond films that it might still be
a seam worth mining.
The
'Green' theme featured my first blurt of Cecil
Day-Lewis rather than Ezra Pound soon to be followed
by a further blurt with Finland rather than Iceland
for the 1918 national day. The latter was
probably unforgivable (well Anne certainly did not
forgive) as it was such a long word resembling a
volcano that it had to be Icelandic. No one spotted
the Russian doggie voyagers but Anne who knows the
lingo spotted the Russian word for gypsy leading us
to a worthy but entirely wrong conclusion of tribes
on the Russian Steppes. Sadly the Historymen
are far too polite to remember Lotsa Vagina and Nob
End - the Prodigals did though!
Sesquicentennial living President
(R3/Q4)
Question of the Week
This week the Prodigals and the History Men have chosen
the second spare question from Round 4, the Run-ons
round...
The name of a vast, remote area of the Australian
Outback, as described in Barcroft Boake's poem
Where the Dead Men Lie,
&
the title of a 1977
album in which an offensive word was claimed to be a
legitimate Old English term for a priest.
For the answer to this and all the week's other
questions click
here.
...and also
Paper pick-up
The
Red Lion website reports that the refurbishments
won't be completed until March 2022 so we should
expect to be using the Fletcher Moss as our weekly
paper pick up point for the rest of this season -
starting from next Wednesday (December 8th).
I'll check out during the week that the bar staff at
the Moss are ready for us.
Post Christmas
The
league programme recommences on January 12th but the
week before, on January 5th, we will play the
much-delayed 2019/20 season's finals...
WIST Champions (Smart Alex v Albert)
Lowly Grail
(History Men v KFD)
Tom Benson has kindly agreed to set the paper for
us.
The 4 competing teams are free to choose where they
wish to play their matches but the Albert Club is
available if anybody wishes to use it and I'll be
happy to act as QM if needed.
Ecstasy meets Agony
(R4/Q6)
Stockport QL Christmas Quiz
(message from Mike Wagstaffe)
We're extending an invitation to any WithQuiz teams
who'd like to join us for the Stockport Quiz
League’s 2021 Christmas Quiz.
We’re missing our ‘European’ matches against
WithQuiz and would love to see some of the
north-of-the-Mersey friends that we’ve made over the
years.
The quiz will be at
Heaton Sports Club on Green Lane, Heaton Moor on
Monday 13 December, starting at 8.30 pm.
The quiz has 100 questions, usually including a
picture round and in some years there has been a
musical/audio element. It will be set and presented
by Greg Spiller who will be very familiar to those
in WithQuiz. There is a ludicrously cheap
£1-per-head entry fee, with proceeds going to
charity. |
